India trains more ethical hackers than anywhere else. It just can't give them a reason to stay

When Nisarga Adhikary found critical flaws in CBSE's exam portal, the board denied it. So he broke back in, filmed it, and left anime videos running on their servers. IIT Kanpur hired him the same week it launched India's first undergraduate cybersecurity degree — one that recruits through hackathons and sends students to work at government security agencies for two of the four years. India produces a quarter of all researchers on global bug bounty platforms. The bounties come almost entirely from foreign companies. The RBI is now hiring cybersecurity talent on three-year contracts with no renewal path. California is still winning. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.